My father served in the Pacific during WWII. He would not talk of Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal, he was, like most GI's of that era grateful for the A bomb. The soldiers did not want to land and have to take the home island. They feared the cost of that battle. However, what my father did tell me was how he heard of start of the war.

He was in the army at the time of the start of the war and in hospital recovering from an illness. He had been napping when the news came of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He turned off the radio in disgust....he thought it was another trick being played on the public by Orson Wells!

I just spoke with a 93 yr. old friend -- an army buddy of my dad's -- who still lives in Los Alamos. He was at the Trinity site for the first nuclear explosion. Since this was the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, he got calls and gave interviews to media from Japan, Brazil, Washington Post, and many local sources. He really is living history.

I gave a an interview with he and my mom in Santa Fe a few years ago and he was exceptional in grace, communication, and information as was my mom. A video of the interview can be found on the website for the New Mexico History Museum, Chavez Library Brown Bag Lectures (scroll through past lectures to this video from 2013). I also wrote the book Los Alamos 1944-1947, published by Arcadia.